Jon Gerardi

Assistant Sports Editor

jgerardi@sungazette.com

At the Bloomsburg 33 on a fourth-and-2, South Williamsport was hoping to keep its drive alive and then score. That’s when Gideon Green got the handoff, took a few steps up the middle and does what he does best, in breaking a run.

Green shook off a few tacklers at the line of scrimmage, cut to his right and had nothing but green grass ahead of him as he trotted the rest of the way for the 33-yard touchdown.

The touchdown was a little extra motivation, as the senior himself put it, since he plays offense and defense and rarely leaves the field.

“I get a break on extra points and special teams, so that’s really an incentive to score to get a break on those,” Green said with a smile.

The workhorse running back put on a show for South Williamsport’s last regular season home game on Senior Night, carrying it 45 times for 312 yards and accounting for five of the team’s six touchdowns in a 42-14 win over Bloomsburg at Rodney K. Morgans Stadium on Friday night.

Green proved to be hard for Bloomsburg to contain, rushing for 6.9 yards a carry and only twice on his 45 carries was he held to no yards or negative yardage. And that’s a credit to the South Williamsport offensive line, which constantly clears the way for the Mountie running back to break runs.

“Our offensive works tirelessly to block every play and they just did a phenomenal job tonight. Every play they go 110 percent,” Green said. “That’s the whole reason I’m getting four yards a play and touchdowns, it’s all in the line.”

After South Williamsport took a 21-0 lead, Bloomsburg’s offense started clicking in the second quarter. The Panthers’ put together consecutive scoring drives of 65- and 68-yards after being held to just two yards of total offense in the first quarter. But after scoring those two touchdowns and account for 133 yards on 14 plays in that second quarter, the Mounties held the Panthers to just 43 yards the entire second half and only once allowed Bloomsburg to penetrate into South Williamsport’s territory.

Only one of the Panthers’ five second-half possessions went for longer than nine yards.

Bloomsburg had just 55 rushing yards and quarterback Nick Anderson was the only player to break 100 yards as he threw for 107 on 10 completions.

“We really work our mental game on defense, we want to know exactly what they’re doing with what formation they’re playing with,” Green said. “It really shows on nights like these when a team as talented as this only has 100 something (total) yards.”

“We prepared all week for that draw, all week and they popped two of them on us. … But you know their quarterback has been playing for awhile for Bloom, their receivers are very explosive,” South Williamsport coach Chris Eiswerth said. “We knew we may give up a few here or there, but if we keep them in front of us and keep rallying to ball, we thought we had a good shot.”

The closest the Panthers ever got was 14 points twice at 21-7 and 28-14. After a scoreless third quarter, the Mounties got back to clicking offensively and punched in two touchdowns.

Green had a 6-yard touchdown run with 6:21 to play in the game to give the Mounties a 35-14 lead and all but seal the game and then broke his 33-yard run with 3:32 to go to make it a 42-14 lead, putting the icing on the cake.

“It was a close game the whole game and we knew we had to do something about that to kind of be able to relax on defense, get some of our starters a little bit of breaks,” Green said. “We just felt like okay, we have to punch this in. We just didn’t the first couple of times, but after second or third drive, we punched a couple in.”

Green scored the first two touchdowns for South Williamsport, breaking a 4- and 10-yard run, respectively, in the first quarter to put the Mounties ahead, 14-0, early.

“That’s what we do. That’s who we are and he’s a guy that’s given everything, his heart and soul to the program for four years,” Eiswerth said.

The only touchdown Green didn’t score was when A.J. Flick found Chevy Bolay on a screen pass that he converted for a 6-yard touchdown to go ahead, 21-0, with 9:11 to play in the second quarter.

South Williamsport held Bloomsburg to just 162 yards of total offense, 133 of which came on their two scoring drives in the second quarter. Bloomsburg also struggled gaining first downs against the Mounties, only picking up nine first downs and going just 2 for 10 on third down conversions and 0 for 4 on fourth down attempts.

Defensively, Reilly Barnes had 1.5 sacks, Chevy Bolay added one and Luke Winner combined on one of Barnes’ sacks. Flick and Austin Nash also both came up with interceptions against Bloomsburg.